Ancient Philosophy

This course is devoted to a careful reading of a small number of texts from a major figure in ancient philosophy, usually Plato or Aristotle (fall 2014: Plato’s Alcibiades I). The goal of the course is twofold: First, it is designed to acquaint students with one of the seminal figures of our tradition in more than a superficial way; in doing that, it will force us to slow our usual pace of reading and to read almost painfully carefully, with a view to understanding the thinker as he wrote and as he understood himself and not as a stage in a historical development. Second, the course will introduce and encourage this kind of careful reading.